Can You Beat Online Blackjack by Counting Cards or Advantage Play?

For a half-century now, we’ve known that blackjack, the card game played in real brick-and-mortar casinos with real dealers in the flesh and not streamed ones, is extremely vulnerable to card counting. Various forms of play that give the blackjack player an advantage against the house have been developed over the years, many of which probably work.

Besides card-counting, the most popular methods of advantage-play are shuffle-tracking, ace-tracking and steering, hole-carding, and most recently edge-sorting.

But can these advantage play blackjack strategies be used online? Let's find out.

Note that this article assumes you alread know the basics of blackjack and some fundamental concepts such as basic blackjack strategy. If not, we suggest reading our roulette tutorial as well as our in-depth blackjack strategy guide, which includes helpful resources such as charts.

Blackjack and Advantage Play

When it comes down to it, all of these methods take advantage of faults relating to the dealer or the equipment used in the game, mainly the cards.

A typical blackjack dealer fault would be giving off a “tell” when peaking underneath an ace to see if the hole card is a ten-value card that would make blackjack. Many dealers present physical manifestations, some as minute as a slight facial twitch, that may indicate whether the hole card is good for a pat hand or that a hit is needed.

Another dealer fault might be insufficient card shuffling. An improperly shuffled deck doesn’t behave with the randomness expected of

Faults relating to the equipment are most common with the cards.

When they become worn, their back designs at the edges tend to discolor just enough for sharp players to notice the difference from other cards. Being able to read compromised card-backs and use that information for betting and strategy purposes is called edge-sorting, and it has become a very effective way for advantage players to make money in brick-and-mortar casinos.

Do Advantage Play Strategies Work in Online Blackjack?

At first glance, you would think there are some card-counting and advantage-play opportunities in the live online blackjack world. That’s because the game itself is dealt by a real dealer on a real table using real cards and a dealing shoe, in spite of the betting and pay-offs still being handled by online software.

However, the problems here are practical more than theoretical. For starters, it’s much more difficult to notice card irregularities over a live video stream. Even the highest-quality broadcasts are not good enough to register tiny imperfections that are crucial for edge sorting.

As for dealer-related faults, those are much less likely to occur during a live casino stream. The reasoning is simple – if a dealer were to have an obvious tell, it would be easily noticed on video by their superiors. Dealer tells don’t last long with live casino dealers, which limits your ability to take advantage of them.

Healthy Skepticism

The internet is full of tall tales and supposed experts claiming that they and they alone have "cracked the code." Be careful when researching casino strategies. Remember that if a technique were truly that effective, the casinos themselves would have probably addressed it by now.

Can You Count Cards in Live Blackjack?

Card counting is probably the most acclaimed strategy to beat blackjack. It involves keeping count of played-through cards in order to predict the changing probabilities of the rest of the round. You can find out more about it here, but we’ll assume you’re at least familiar with the gist.

Yes, you can use whatever card-counting method you choose and apply it just as you would in brick-and-mortar casinos. But unfortunately, practically all live online blackjack games have their dealers dealing 50%–or less–of the cards in the shoe, which makes it very difficult to ever obtain a meaningful card-counting advantage.

So unless you can find a live online casino with a game out there with a dealer dealing much deeper into the deck, you might as well forget counting the cards.

Other Methods

So what about simpler techniques, such as keeping track of groups of 10s or poorly shuffled decks? Are they viable at live blackjack tables online?

You can do that too, but unfortunately, these methods also have systematic problems preventing you from truly using them to profit.

Some live online blackjack games are replacing card shoes that have just been dealt with other card shoes loaded with cards that have been shuffled off camera. Other games shuffle the cards with the proper steps to nullify tracking.

And even if such were not the case, you would still not be able to cut and steer cards to your upcoming hands at the top of a new shoe.

Bottom Line

Trying to count the cards or initiate any other form of advantage play on live online blackjack tables is a waste of time.

The reasoning is simple – any advantage play strategies that actually work can be proven using statistics or in practice. Such methods won’t remain secret for long, and the casinos will quickly address them to protect their business and profits.

The very reason most blackjack tables use eight decks is to make card counting nearly impossible. The same can be said for low deck penetration, automatic card shuffles, and other trappings of modern live casino tables.

A basic blackjack strategy will help maximize your odds of winning, but guaranteeing success through traditional advantage play methods is impossible.

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Can You Beat Online Blackjack by Counting Cards or Advantage Play?

Blackjack and Advantage Play

Do Advantage Play Strategies Work in Online Blackjack?

Healthy Skepticism

Can You Count Cards in Live Blackjack?

Other Methods

Bottom Line

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